::::
She's ten - and the only one currently not donning a pink princess hat.
The birthday party that takes over the Matthews residence is a princess affair, as per request of the birthday girl. The guest of honor sits high and mighty upon a throne of throw pillows stacked on the couch, giggling as she waves around a pink and purple star-shaped wand. It glows and rattles from the candy still lodged inside. She wears a sparkly princess dress, not unlike Cinderella's - but pink.
(There's just so much pink, everywhere. Inescapable.)
A mob of equally frill nine and ten-year-olds sit around the couch, waving the cheaper wands they received in their candy-based gift bags, squealing in unison.
Even after five years of friendship, Maya doesn't understand why she was invited. She wears her favorite jeans and a Walt Disney World sweatshirt her mother surprised her with from Goodwill, her sketchbook in hand. Her own gifted wand lies beside her, untouched.
The adults are behind her at the kitchen table - Mrs. and Mr. Matthews and Riley's grandparents. From her slight eavesdropping, Maya knows there is stir about the absence of a supposed Uncle Shawn.
(She hasn't seen him and Riley's only mentioned him once before; she's almost a hundred percent sure he doesn't really exist.)
Topanga secures a squirmy Auggie in her lap, trying to keep his chubby three-year-old hands from destroying the leftover pieces of the demolished Disney Princess cake.
"What's that?"
The blonde jumps, uncharacteristically startled. She turns in her chair from spying over the back of it at the adults to face the boy standing in front of her.
Maya doesn't know what to make of Joshua Matthews quite yet. This is only her third time meeting him; the last two she was six or seven, and he was already referred to being at a friend's.
His hair falls against his forehead in too-long bangs - it practically acts as a curtain for his ears. He reaches up with a hand to knock his hair out of his eye's line of sight. His other hand points to her sketchbook.
"Just pictures," Maya responds after taking her stubby pencil from between her teeth.
"Can I see?" he asks.
Maya blinks. She's never been asked that before.
(Except by Ms. Greene, the elementary art teacher - Maya wasn't sure that counted, though, because being interest in art was her job. She would show interest, too, if she was the one getting paid.)
"Okay," she says after a minute of nothing by adult murmurs and girls squealing. She hands him her sketchbook, watching his hands take hold of it carefully - like it's too important to be held with only one hand.
Her skin turns prickly as Josh flips through the pages, his face giving away nothing. It doesn't even move, except for his eyes, which flicker across each page, drinking in every detail.
Maya heard her mother describe this feeling once - nervous.
She doesn't like it; suddenly, she wants her book back, with her mere sketches nothing but her own.
But Maya doesn't ask for it back. Even at the tender age of ten, she isn't one to back down from a challenge, even one as slight as letting her best friend's uncle flip through her drawings.
"Wow," Josh spits out finally.
Maya squints up at him; for thirteen, he doesn't have a lot of impressive things to say - not that she's seen, so far.
"Those are really good, Maya," he adds, holding her book out.
Maya takes it with a slight nod of thanks, hugging it to her chest. "Thanks."
"Draw me."
The request is so casual and abrupt she nearly gets whiplash bringing her head up to look at him.
"What?"
"Draw me," Josh repeats, not missing a beat. He nods his head in a gesture to indicate the sketch of Princess Riley Maya was doodling.
Maya looks down, inspecting the picture herself. Riley stares up at her, the gleam in her eyes emphasized by the dig of dark pencil lead, and the poofiness of her skirt caught to perfection.
Josh waits in front of her, patient.
Finally, Maya shrugs. Her mouth is sticky from the frosting on the cake.
"Okay."
::::
Her first Matthews' cookout is...overwhelming, to say the least.
Maya picks at her burger and Amy's homemade potato salad, trying not to look as awkward as she felt.
Everyone's spread out everywhere: Riley is hanging out with Uncle Eric by the fence, a flustered Farkle by her side, looking as dazed by the commotion as the blonde felt; Aunt Morgan and Topanga are by the grill, Topanga switching between talking with Morgan and warning Cory not to burn the burgers; Auggie sits in his Grandpa's lap, holding his grandparents' rapt attention with some story about what happens when you stay in a sprinkler too long.
(She doesn't miss that, yet again, this Uncle Shawn character hasn't appeared. Figures.)
The food, the people, the blasting top 40's, the large bubble of home and family - it's all so startling, so off-putting, that Maya's appetite dissolves.
She swings her legs over the bench she has been perched on ever since she had pulled in with the Matthews, getting up to toss away her half-eaten burger and remnants of what had been a small mountain or potato salad.
Slipping away unnoticed, Maya walks into the house.
The kitchen is cozy, but definitely outdated. Everything, from the furniture to wallpaper to the countertop screams nineties, but Maya finds it to be an admirable quality; she has always been a sucker for vintage, after all.
"What are you doing in here?"
The blonde turns, not as startled as she thought she would be, to meet his gaze.
Josh hasn't changed much since their first real encounter - in a living room full of frilly pink princesses. Maya wonders if she'll ever look that much like her thirteen-year-old self when she's sixteen.
(She isn't too bad looking at thirteen, thank you very much.)
"Escaping the heat," Maya answers with a shrug. It's a partial truth; Philadelphia afternoons in August felt like being on the sun compared to New York.
He nods, his longish hair flopping with the motion, but he looks unconvinced. In his hands he holds a bag of chips and a can of cream soda.
"I get that," he responds. Maya feels grateful; he must be the only Matthews born with a nosy gene that he can control.
"What are you doing in here?" Maya counters, looking at him. He wore cargo shorts and a Rolling Stones T-shirt with Nikes, looking like he was about to be called to throw a football around at any moment.
(Maya highly doubted that was true; her history teacher couldn't catch a ball to save his life, much less to it for fun.)
"Avoiding the party isn't being a very good host," she continues, eying him. Even after three years, the older boy is close to a complete mystery. But might she say, a quite handsome one, at that.
Josh shrugs, setting down his bag of chips in favor of opening his soda can.
"I've never been much of a party person, if you can believe it," he says with enough causality that it makes it hard to tell if that is the actual truth or there's a deeper meaning to their words.
(There probably wasn't - Maya just watches too many CSI reruns.)
"Oh, yeah? So what do you do instead?"
Josh takes a swig from his can before responding. "Would you believe that I'm a total literature nerd?" he asks her, his face a mask of total seriousness.
Maya blinked. This is coming from a guy she saw riding his skateboard up in down the sidewalk in front of the house in the first twenty minutes of her arrival; this is coming from a guy who, for as long as she had known about his existence, she has seen wear nothing but band shirts and dark washed jeans with skater shoes.
Now, just a mere two hours into his family's barbecue, he's standing in front of her confessing his love of literature.
"Bullshit," she deadpans.
He puts a hand to his heart, staggering a step as she has actually put a dagger through his heart.
"You want proof?" he asks.
Maya purses her lips. She can recognize a line with bait when she sees one - she's casted enough of her own to know.
But the question is: does she bite?
Oh, what the hell.
Josh leads the way to his room, and Maya has to say that she's mildly stunned by the amount of pictures that hang on the walls. Each are taken of either the kids or the family altogether, ranging from Eric Matthews in a yellow birthday hat blowing out five candles to tiny baby Joshua, swaddled in a blue blanket as his mother holds him close.
Maya stops in front of it and peers closer, observing the scene.
The older boy notices the lack of footsteps behind him and turns, watch as the blonde leans in, taking in his baby picture with intense focus.
"I've never seen a baby picture of me," she comments, sounding bitter. "When I was three or four, yeah, but never in the hospital, wrapped up in a blanket or anything."
Josh steps closer, inspecting the picture as well. He wonders what she sees when she looks at the tiny body wrapped in blue. He's never heard anything about that day besides the miracle of him living.
He thinks about it sometimes, if the miracle hadn't happened, if he truly did die as such a tiny little thing.
Then, he looks to Maya. Her lips are tilted downwards, in a subconscious frown, as if her emotions were reacting the negative energy the picture gave off about that day.
"C'mon," he says gently, placing a guiding hand on her elbow. "My room's this way."
His rooms looks about as Maya expects. Dark blue walls, skateboard posters, black sheets and a blue and white flannel quilt hanging off an untidy bed; a desk full of paper and books, even though school hasn't even begun.
But she is taken by the Shakespeare poster that hangs beside Tony Hawk, and the title of classics she squints to read from the doorway that sit on his makeshift bookshelf - truly, just a neat stack of books set up against the wall, as if mimicking the Great Wall of China.
(And in this very moment, a small, girlish part of her Riley unleashed without knowing it years ago freaks; this is her first being in a boy's room. (Other than Auggie's, who may be adorable, but doesn't really count.))
"Wow."
Josh hums in agreement, stepping into the room and toward his desk, where books are stacked as well. He picks up the top one from the stack, thumbing through it.
"Kinda lame, but I like highlighting verses, finding quotes and all that," Josh explains as Maya helps herself into the room from the doorway. She bends down to inspect the titles on the spines of his book wall. "Who knows, maybe they'll actually give me enough intelligence to form decent conversation with another human being."
Maya stands, his beat-up copy of To Kill A Mockingbird in her hands.
"I don't know," she says, looking genuine, "you seem to be doing pretty good so far."
He looks up, amused.
"Really?" He smiles, tilting his head at her.
Maya can feel herself latching onto the hook, the bait sinking all the way to her stomach.
"Really."
That night, Maya falls asleep in the backseat on Riley's shoulder, verses highlighted in yellow and blue and green and orange imprinted behind her eyelids. Raspberry sorbet stains her tongue a darker red and cools her stomach.
His phone number burns warm in her pocket.
::::
Sent:
Did you know your name means the Hebrew God is salvation?
Recieved:
Really? How fascinating.
Did you know yours means
generous
illusion
brook
spring
princess
& love?
Sent:
...really? How fascinating.
::::
It's late. Riley sleeps soundly in bed beside her, but Maya can't shake the insomnia from her head.
They don't have much planned for tomorrow anyway, she thinks as she looks out the window. Lucas is due to pick the brunette up at noon for a movie date, and Riley made Maya swear she would study for their approaching chem test.
Not to mention, Auggie expects her to be fresh enough to offer him more advice on how to treat Ava for their one month anniversary.
(Because, apparently, having anniversaries in the fifth grade is a thing now - who knew?)
The stars are nearly impossible to see from Riley's bay window, New York City still lit up like a million Christmas trees even at the quiet hour of two in the morning. She would find this riveting if she didn't ache to draw the stars so badly.
In the between silence of her friend's quiet snores, her phone pings.
Recieved:
Are you up?
Sent:
What do you think?
Recieved:
Come down. Can't sleep, need to go somewhere.
Sent:
Chilli fries and milkshakes?
Recieved:
You are a godsend.
With practiced movements, Maya is pulling on a jacket and pair of shoes in seconds, slipping out of the window and down the fire escape at record speed.
He waits below as promised, donning bedhead and flannel pajamas with hiker boots.
"Good thing we aren't walking a runway," she snorts, linking arms with him.
They talk into the night on their two-block journey to the diner. Her mom has been off the graveyard shift ever since the new management happened, so Maya feels a lot more secure in her nightly visits with her recently acquired partner in crime.
They slide into their vinyl booth, not even bothering with flipping open their menus.
Cheri, the usual graveyard waitress, doesn't bother with stopping by, either. She's taken their order so many times it's already halfway done by the time the two step through the door.
Maya levels him with a stare. "So, how's life, college man?"
Josh snorts, running a hand through his hair. "I'm alive, which is a shocker."
She raises her eyebrows. She hasn't seen him since the beginning of August, but she knows the classes he was thinking about sounded like a lot to chew - even the names sounded brutal.
But she wasn't about to expect any less from a guy who decided on NYU. Naturally, he'd gotten acceptances from all his top choices, a dozen of scholarship opportunities from schools he hadn't even applied to, a luxury Maya is positive stretched way beyond her reach.
"Are you taking Music Theory still?" the blonde asks as their order of large chili fries is set in front of them. Steam rises off the gooey cheddar cheese and massive amounts of chili beans, quarantining their booth with its delicious scent.
Josh nods, his eyes lighting up. She saw the same look several times throughout the year he had taken off to sort out his classes and intuition, several printed class descriptions laid out in front of him, his options endless.
"Oh, definitely. And remember that mythology course I'd mentioned? I'm finally off the goddamned waiting list!"
Maya beams, reaching out to grab a particularly gooey chili cheese fry, holding it up in a toast. "Hallelujah!" she cries.
He echoes her and their fries clanked messily before they simultaneously pop their toasts in their mouths.
The nineteen-year-old continues to rave about his classes, slipping in a complaint about this professor or that project, but for the most part college seems to be heaven on Earth for him.
Maya tries not to envy him. She would love to have the same stability that she saw Josh have when he looked at college - never a worry about money or distance or boarding. the day grows closer that Riley will get this same deal to, and the blonde tries to not to feel bitter about how pathetic her future seems to be.
"And yanno, kid," Josh says, catching her attention. Whenever he calls her kid, it usually meant he's going to say something serious, and Maya never wanted to miss a word. "NYU has one hell of an art program."
Maya sighs. Josh knows well of her pessimistic views on her life, and has begun to take a page out of Riley's book about cutting them off at the root.
And while the blonde truly appreciated his efforts, she wants college to be as far away as possible at the moment.
(Hell, she kinda wants a car before college comes into the picture.)
For now, she grips her condensed milkshake glass in her hands, sipping up the thick chocolateness through the straw, studying her older friend across the table.
Time has really treated him well, something no one could deny. His hair was still perfectly chestnut and floppy in all the right places, his skin flawlessly smooth, and his eyes brighter than ever.
The cut of his cheekbones, the slope his nose, the stretch of his smile - especially when he laughs - all still make her stomach twist, make something clench around her heart.
Maybe someday, she thinks to herself, much as she does whenever she's in his presence. Maybe someday her chances will be bigger - perhaps after college or whenever her life isn't such a fuckup.
Perhaps when college is in the rearview mirror, and the world is bigger than just New York City.
(Maybe someday.
Perhaps.)
::::
fin.
please forgive the horridness of this. it's 3am and i'm tired.